Entanglement production from scattering of fermionic wave packets: a quantum

computing approach
Yahui Chai,1, ∗ Arianna Crippa,1, 2 Karl Jansen,1, 3 Stefan Kühn,1
Vincent R. Pascuzzi,4, † Francesco Tacchino,5 and Ivano Tavernelli5
1
CQTA, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Platanenallee 6, 15738 Zeuthen, Germany
2
Institut für Physik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Newtonstr. 15, 12489 Berlin, Germany
3
Computation-Based Science and Technology Research Center,
The Cyprus Institute, 20 Kavafi Street, 2121 Nicosia, Cyprus
4
IBM Quantum, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA
5
IBM Quantum, IBM Research Europe – Zurich, Rueschlikon 8803, Switzerland
(Dated: December 6, 2023)
We propose a method to prepare Gaussian wave packets with momentum on top of the interacting
arXiv:2312.02272v1 [quant-ph] 4 Dec 2023

ground state of a fermionic Hamiltonian. Using Givens rotation, we show how to efficiently obtain
expectation values of observables throughout the evolution of the wave packets on digital quantum
computers. We demonstrate our technique by applying it to the staggered lattice formulation of
the Thirring model and studying the scattering of two wave packets. Monitoring the the particle
density and the entropy produced during the scattering process, we characterize the phenomenon
and provide a first step towards studying more complicated collision processes on digital quantum
computers. In addition, we perform a small-scale demonstration on IBM’s quantum hardware,
showing that our method is suitable for current and near-term quantum devices.

I. INTRODUCTION in regimes where conventional Monte Carlo methods suf-

Collider experiments play a central role for under-
standing the subatomic structure of matter, and for de-
veloping and verifying the theoretical description of the
elementary particles and their interactions. Arguably,
the most prominent example is the LHC at CERN, which
enabled a major experimental breakthrough with the dis-
covery of the Higgs boson [1, 2]. While the Standard
Model provides a theoretical description for all known
elementary particles and the fundamental forces among
them (except for gravity) in terms of gauge theories, the
understanding of scattering processes and more general
out-of-equilibrium dynamics at a fundamental level re-
mains challenging. In particular, these phenomena are
nonperturbative, and a standard tool for exploring this
regime is lattice field theory. Discretizing the theory on
a lattice allows for sophisticated Markov chain Monte
Carlo simulations that have been highly successful for
exploring static properties of gauge theories [3, 4]. How-
ever, the sign problem prevents an extension of this ap-
proach to dynamical problems, leaving open many rele-
vant questions regarding the real-time evolution of scat-
tering processes. Hence, there is an ongoing effort to
find alternative approaches allowing for overcoming this
limitation [5–8].
Methods originating from quantum information theory
provide a promising avenue towards studying real-time
dynamics of lattice field theories. On the one hand, clas-
sical computational methods based on Tensor Networks
have been demonstrated to allow for reliable simulations
∗ yahui.chai@desy.de
† vrpascuzzi@ibm.com
fer from the sign problem [7, 9]. Tensor Network states
are a family of entanglement-based ansätze for the wave
function of a strongly-correlated quantum many-body
system, which allow for an efficient classical description of
the system in case the entanglement in the system is not
too large [10–12]. In particular, Tensor Network states
were successfully used to study real-time dynamics of var-
ious (1+1)-dimensional Abelian and non-Abelian lattice
gauge theories [13, 14], including meson scattering in the
Schwinger model [15]. So far, Tensor Networks have been
most successful for (1+1)-dimensional theories. General-
izing this success to higher dimensions is not an imme-
diate task, although there already exist calculations for
gauge models in higher dimensions [16, 17]. Moreover,
the Tensor Network approach becomes inefficient in sit-
uations in which the entanglement in the system can be-
come large. A prominent example are out-of-equilibrium
dynamics following a global quench, during which the en-
tanglement in the system can grow linearly in time [18–
20]. Hence, for these problems only short to intermediate
time-scales are accessible with Tensor Networks [21, 22].
On the other hand, quantum computers hold the ma-
jor promise to be able to efficiently simulate real-time dy-
namics of lattice field theories, even in regimes that are
challenging for Tensor Network. This has already been
successfully demonstrated in various proof-of-principle
experiments [23–25]. Simulating scattering processes for
lattice field theories on a quantum computer poses a num-
ber of particular challenges. Firstly, one has to be able
to simulate the evolution of some initial state under the
Hamiltonian describing the theory. Secondly, the parti-
cles of the theory are typically highly nontrivial objects,
and preparing the qubits of a digital quantum device in
an initial state that corresponds to two particles with mo-
menta, such that they start to move towards each other
 2

and scatter is not an easy task. reads [31]

In this paper we provide first steps towards address-
N −1 
ing some of these challenges using a staggered lattice dis-

X i  † 
cretization of the Thirring model [26] as a test bed. Using H= ξn+1 ξn − ξn† ξn+1 + (−1)n m ξn† ξn
n=0
2a
Givens rotation [27–29], we show how to prepare localized
N −1
wave packets with momentum on a digital quantum com- g(λ) †
ξ ξn ξ † ξn+1 ,
X
puter, such that they start moving during the evolution +
n=0
a n n+1
in time. Starting from the ground state of the Hamilto-
nian, which can be obtained by the variational quantum
(2)
eigensolver (VQE) [30] or some other method, this allows where g(λ) = cos (π−λ)/2 with −π < λ ≤ π and ξn is a
us to simulate scattering between particles and antipar- single-component fermionic field on site n, and we iden-
†
ticles for fermionic models. Performing numerical simu- tify ξN ≡ ξ0† . The fermionic creation and annihilation
lations of the quantum system on a classical computer, operators satisfy the anti-commutation relations
we demonstrate the elastic scattering of the fermions and
we examine the entropy production during the evolution {ξn† , ξn′ } = δn,n′ , {ξn† , ξn† ′ } = 0, {ξn , ξn′ } = 0. (3)
in the Thirring model. The approach we demonstrate for Note that for g = 0 the four-fermion interaction term
the Thirring model can straightforwardly be generalized in Eq. (2) vanishes, and the resulting Hamiltonian cor-
to arbitrary fermionic models. responds to a staggered discretization of N/2 free Dirac
The paper is organized as follows. In Sec. II, we intro- fermions, which is quadratic in the fermion fields1 . Thus,
duce the staggered discretization for the Thirring model this case can be solved with free-fermion techniques both
that we are studying. Subsequently, we show how to cre- analytically [35] or on a quantum device [36]. Moreover,
ate Gaussian wave packets with appropriate momentum in this limit, the interpretation of the staggered lattice
to make the two particles collide in Sec. III. Our numer- discretization in terms of particles and antiparticles be-
ical results demonstrating the procedure are shown in comes more transparent. Occupied even sites contribute
Sec. IV. Finally, we conclude in Sec. V and provide an m to the energy and, thus, can be interpreted as parti-
outlook. cles with mass m. In contrast, occupied odd sites con-
tribute −m to the energy and correspond to the Dirac
sea. Empty odd sites hence represent to a hole in the
II. MODEL SYSTEM AND LATTICE
FORMULATION Dirac sea, i.e. an antiparticle with mass m [37].
As conventional qubit-based quantum hardware can-
not directly address fermionic degrees of freedom, we
Here we consider the massive Thirring model in (1+1) choose to map them to spins using a Jordan-Wigner
dimensions. The continuum Lagrangian L for this model transformation [38]
reads [26, 31]
Y Y
λ ξn† = σlz σn− , ξn = σlz σn+ , (4)
L = iψγ µ ∂µ ψ − mψ(x)ψ(x) − (ψγµ ψ)(ψγ µ ψ), (1) l<n l<n
2
where ψ(x) is a two-component Dirac spinor, m the where σl± = (σlx ± iσly ) /2. Inserting the expression
bare fermion mass, and g the dimensionless four- above into Eq. (2), we obtain the Hamiltonian in terms
fermion coupling constant . The spinor components ful- of Pauli matrices
fill the usual anti-commutation relations for fermions: N −2
{ψα† (x), ψβ (y)} = δα,β δ(x − y), {ψα (x), ψβ (y)} = 0, i X −
σ + − σn− σn+1
+


H= σ
where α, β ∈ {0, 1} label the components of the spinor. 2a n=0 n+1 n
In (1+1) dimensions the index µ takes values 0 and 1, i
σ0− σ1z · · · σN
z + − z z +


and the matrices γ µ correspond to two of the Pauli ma- + −2 σN −1 − σN −1 σN −2 · · · σ1 σ0
2a
trices {σ x , σ y , σ z } up to a phase factor; in the follow- N −1
ing we choose to work with the representation γ 0 = σ z , m X
+ (−1)n (1 − σnz )
γ 1 = iσ y . For a positive value of the coupling λ, the 2 n=0
model is known to exhibit an attractive force between N −1
fermions and antifermions [32]. g X
(1 − σnz ) 1 − σn+1
z


+ ,
In order to address the theory numerically on a quan- 4a n=0
tum computer, we need to adopt a Hamiltonian lattice (5)
formulation of the model. Following Ref. [31], we choose
to work with the Kogut-Susskind staggered formulation,
where the components of the spinor are distributed to
different lattice sites in order to avoid the doubling prob- 1 Since we are working with a staggered discretization that sep-
lem [33, 34]. For a periodic lattice with N sites and arates the two components of the Dirac spinor to the odd and
spacing a, the lattice discretization of the Thirring model even sublattices, N is considered to be even.

i
where we again identify σN = σ0i , i ∈ {x, y, z}, and ten-
sor products between operators are assumed. Note that
the non-local Pauli-strings in the second line of Eq. (5)
arise due to the periodic boundary conditions, and are a
consequence
 of the Jordan-Wigner
 transformation of the
† †
terms ξ0 ξN −1 − ξN −1 ξ0 wrapping around the bound-
ary. For the rest of this paper, we consider without loss
of generality a = 1.
III. SIMULATING REAL-TIME DYNAMICS OF
SCATTERING ON A DIGITAL QUANTUM
COMPUTER
Simulating the out-of-equilibrium dynamics following
a particle collision is highly nontrivial task, which is to
a large extent inaccessible with MC methods due to the
sign problem. Thus, there has been an ongoing effort
to utilize methods from quantum information theory to
simulate real-time evolution of scattering processes [15,
39] using the Hamiltonian formulation. In order to be
able to simulate scattering processes, the following steps
have to be accomplished.
1. Preparing the ground state of the Hamiltonian, |Ω⟩,
which we refer to as the vacuum state.
2. Generating an initial state |ψ(0)⟩ that corresponds
to the vacuum state with two wave packets at ar-
bitrary distance, which represent particles and an-
tiparticles with appropriately chosen momenta.
3. Performing a real-time evolution on the initial state
|ψ(t)⟩ = e−iHt |ψ(0)⟩ such that the particles will
propagate and interact with each other over time.
4. Measuring relevant observables in the state |ψ(t)⟩.
Mature approaches exist for performing step 1 on current
quantum hardware, e.g. by means of VQE [40] or by ap-
plying variational imaginary time evolution [41, 42]. Sim-
ilarly, the real time simulation in step 3 can be simulated
in general by trotterizing the evolution operator [43, 44]
or by means of variational time evolution methods [44–
46]. Moreover, step 4 can also be done efficiently on a
quantum computer for local observables.
Here we focus on some aspects concerning the steps
2–4, and assume the ground state can be prepared
with some unitary U0 from the state corresponding to
all qubits initialized in state |0 . . . 0⟩ ≡ |0⟩ such that
|Ω⟩ = U0 |0⟩. Section III A reports on the preparation
of the initial state corresponding to two particles with
opposite momenta. The procedure consists of two steps.
First, we consider the free fermionic case corresponding
to g = 0. In this case, the model can be solved analyti-
cally, which allows us to construct exact operators creat-
ing a wave packet for particles and antiparticles. While
these operators generate true (anti)particles only in the
3
non-interacting case, they will also provide a valid ap-
proximation for a particle in the interacting case. In Sec-
tion III B we then discuss the implementation of these
states on a quantum device and provide the correspond-
ing circuits using Givens rotations entangling gates. The
implementation of the quantum dynamics circuits is de-
scribed in Section III C, while Section III D reports on
the calculation of the time-dependent observables.
A. Free Gaussian fermion and antifermion wave
packets in the staggered encoding
Let us first consider the non-interacting case g = 0, for
which Eq. (2) corresponds to the staggered discretization
of N/2 free Dirac fermions. Our goal is to derive opera-
tors which create a localized particle or antiparticle in the
form of a Gaussian wave packet with associated momen-
tum, acting on the vacuum state. This can be easily done
using the plane wave solutions of the theory in momen-
tum space. Reference [15] solved the model analytically,
and in the rest of this subsection we will briefly review
their results and show the construction of Gaussian wave
packets.
Note that Eq. (2) is invariant under translations by two
lattice sites due to the staggered mass term. Thus, it can
be solved using standard methods by first performing a
Fourier transformation followed by a Bogoliubov trans-
formation. Doing this, we obtain two sets of creation
operators, c†k and d†k , in momentum space which corre-
spond to the creation operators for particles and antipar-
ticles with momenta k ∈ 2π N N
N × {−⌊ 4 ⌋, · · · ⌈ 4 ⌉ − 1}. The
plane wave solutions can be used to construct operators
creating Gaussian wave packets. Their representation in
momentum space is given by
ϕck c†k , ϕdk d†k ,
X X
C † (ϕc ) = D† (ϕd ) = (6)
k k
where the coefficients are given by a Gaussian distribu-
tion
c(d) 1 c(d) c(d) 2 2
ϕk = c(d)
e−ikµn e−(k−µk ) /4σk
. (7)
Nk
The normalization factor
2
c(d) c(d)
X
Nk = ϕk (8)
k
c(d)
ensures that |ϕk |2 is a probability density and
P c(d) 2 † †
k |ϕk | = 1. The operator C (ϕc ) (D (ϕd )) will cre-
c(d)
ate a Gaussian wave packet with a mean momentum µk
c(d)
and width σk in momentum space, located around µn
in real space.
The operators in momentum space c†k , d†k are related
to the original annihilation and creation operators in real
 4

space as B. Givens rotation for preparing fermionic states

r
1 m + wk X ikn
c†k = √ e (Πn0 + vk Πn1 ) ξn† One of the most efficient ways to implement the action
N wk n
r (9) of linear combinations of the fermionic operators on a
1 m + wk X ikn fermionic state is to use Givens rotations [27]. This ap-
d†k = √ e (Πn1 + vk Πn0 ) ξn ,
N wk proach allows for the realization of the resulting fermionic
n
states with a quantum circuit of linear depth in the sys-
where tem size, N [28, 29].
sin(k)
q The linear combination of fermionic operators in
vk = , wk = m2 + sin2 (k), (10) Eq. (12) can be interpreted as a unitary transformation
m + wk
of the original creation and annihilation operators
and Πnl is a projection operator defined as
V (u)ξ0† V † (u) =
  X
Πnl = 1 + (−1)
n+l
/2, l ∈ {0, 1}. (11) ξn† un0 (15)
n
This allows for obtaining an explicit representation of the
operators creating a wave packet in position space, where
X X
C † (ϕc ) = ϕcn ξn† , D† (ϕd ) = ϕdn ξn , (12) X
!
n n V (u) = exp ξn† [log u]nl ξl (16)
where the normalized coefficients are given by nl
r
c 1 X c m + wk ikn with a unitary matrix u ∈ CN ×N . Choosing the first
ϕn = √ ϕk e (Πn0 + vk Πn1 )
N k wk column of u to be equal ϕcn (ϕdn ), Eq. (15) corresponds
r (13) exactly to the creation operators for Gaussian wave pack-
d 1 X d m + wk ikn
ϕn = √ ϕk e (Πn1 + vk Πn0 ) . ets for fermion (antifermions) in Eq. (12). Note that this
N wk c(d) c(d)
is always possible since n |ϕn |2 = 1 and thus the ϕn
P
k
can be interpreted as the entries of a complex unit vec-
Looking at Eq. (12), we see that C † (ϕc ) (D† (ϕc )) corre-
tor in CN . Furthermore, since we do not care about the
sponds to a superposition of creation (annihilation) op-
other columns of u, we can simply choose these such that
erators, thus showing that it creates a wave packet for
the columns of u form an orthonormal basis of CN .
particles (antiparticles). Note that the coefficients in
P c(d) 2 The map V (u) is a homomorphism under matrix mul-
Eq. (13) are again normalized, n |ϕn | = 1, hence tiplication, i.e. V (u · u′ ) = V (u) · V (u′ ). Thus, in order to
c(d)
|ϕn |2 corresponds to a probability density. obtain a decomposition in V (u) in unitary gates that can
Focusing on the limit of infinite mass, m → ∞, be implemented on a quantum computer, we can decom-
Eq. (10) reveals that for this case vk → 0. Together with pose the matrix u in a product of unitaries acting nontriv-
the properties of the projectors in Eq. (11), we see that ially only on a few sites. This can be done with Givens
in this limit C † (ϕc ) (D† (ϕd )) only affects the even (odd) rotations [28, 29], as detailed in Appendix A. Since we
sites. Thus, in this limit the particles are only located at care only about the first column of u, corresponding to
the even sites whereas the antiparticles reside on the odd ϕcn , we hereafter will write V (ϕcn ) instead of V (u).
sites. For a finite mass one finds 0 < |vk | ≤ 1, hence the
In summary, we can decompose the matrix u into a
fermion and antifermion are located on both even and ⃗ and Givens rotation
product of a diagonal matrix p(β)
odd sites, with the amplitude of fermion (antifermion)
matrices, rn (θn ), n = 1, . . . , N −1. This allows us to con-
being by suppressed the factor |vk | on odd (even) sites.
struct a decomposition of the operator V (u) using that
Figure 1 illustrates this effect by showing the probabil-
c(d) c(d) it is a homomorphism under matrix multiplication. In
ity density |ϕk |2 in momentum and |ϕn |2 in position particular, the structure of the Givens rotation matri-
space for two values of the mass. ces is such that V (rn (θn )) acts non-trivially only on two
A state corresponding to the vacuum with a fermion neighboring sites. More specifically, if we write the com-
and antifermion wave packet superimposed on top can plex Gaussian amplitudes in position space in polar form,
now be obtained by acting with the operators C(ϕc ) and ϕcn = an e−iβn , n = 0, . . . , N − 1, with absolute value an
D(ϕd ) on the state |Ω⟩ with, and phase angle βn , we can decompose the operator V
|ψ(0)⟩ = D† (ϕd ) C † (ϕc ) |Ω⟩ . (14) as,

In order to prepare this state on a quantum device, one ⃗

V (ϕcn ) = V † (p(β))V †
(rN −1 ) · · · V † (r1 ). (17)
has to be able to implement the action of the operators
C † (ϕc ) and D† (ϕd ) on a given fermionic state. In the
following we discuss how this can be achieved with Givens In the expression above β⃗ is a real vector whose entries
rotations [27–29]. are the phase angles of the Gaussian amplitudes and the
 5

(a) | kc|2 (b) | xc|2, m = 1 (c) | xc|2, m = 100

0.40 0.200
0.175
0.35 0.175
0.150
0.30 0.150
0.125
0.25 0.125
0.20 0.100 0.100
0.15 0.075 0.075
0.10 0.050 0.050
0.05 0.025 0.025
0.00 10 5 0 5 10 0.000 0 10 20 30 40 50 0.000 0 10 20 30 40 50
(d) | k|
d2 (e) | x| ,
d2 m=1 (f) | x| ,
d2 m = 100
0.40 0.200
0.175
0.35 0.175
0.150
0.30 0.150
0.125
0.25 0.125
0.20 0.100 0.100
0.15 0.075 0.075
0.10 0.050 0.050
0.05 0.025 0.025
0.00 10 5 0 5 10 0.000 0 10 20 30 40 50 0.000 0 10 20 30 40 50

FIG. 1. Probability density for a Gaussian wave packet in momentum and position space for N = 50 sites. The upper row shows
a Gaussian fermionic wave packet with µck = 5×2π/N , the lower row a Gaussian antifermion wave packet with µdk = −5×2π/N ,
both with a width of σk = 2π/N . Panels (a) and (d) correspond to the distribution in momentum space, panels (b), (c) and (e),
(f) show the probability density of the single Gaussian (anti)fermion in position space for masses m = 1 and 100. The second
and third column illustrate that with increasing mass, resulting in a value of vk closer to zero, the probabiltiy distribution for
the fermion (antifermion) in position space is increasingly suppressed on odd (even) sites.

terms correspond to Rx (− π2 ) Rx (α) Rx ( π2 )

− 2i (ασix σjy +βσiy σjx ) =
! e
Rz (− π2 ) Rx (− π2 ) Rz (−β) Rx ( π2 ) Rz ( π2 )
⃗ = exp −i
X
†
V (p(β)) βn ξn† ξn , (18)
n
FIG. 2. Decomposition


of a gate of the form
 
† †
V (rn ) = exp θn [ξn−1 ξn − ξn† ξn−1 ] , (19) exp −i ασix σjy + βσiy σjx /2 into Pauli rotation and CNOT
gates.
where θn is the Givens rotation angle given by θn =
arctan (−an /an−1 ).
Using the Jordan-Wigner transformation from Eq. (4), sion for V (ϕdn ) and also decompose it into a quantum
⃗ can be mapped to a set of single-
the operator V † (p(β)) circuit using Givens rotations.
qubit rotation gates (up to a global phase) Finally, we can rewrite the operators creating a Gaus-
! sian fermion (antifermion) wave packet as
X βn
⃗
Y
† z
V (p(β)) = exp i σn = Rz (−βn ), (20) N −1
2 X
n n
C † (ϕc ) = ξn† ϕcn = V (ϕcn )σ0+ V † (ϕcn ),
where Rz (θ) = exp(−iθσ z /2) is the standard Pauli ro- n=0
(22)
−1
tation gate about the z-axis. For V † (rn ) the Jordan- † d
N
X
− † d∗
Wigner transformation yields a particle-number conserv- D (ϕ ) = ξn ϕdn =V (ϕd∗
n )σ0 V (ϕn ),
ing two-qubit gate n=0

where ϕd∗ d
n is the complex conjugate of ϕn , and we trans-
 
† θn x y y x


V (rn (θn )) = exp i σn−1 σn − σn−1 σn . (21) lated the fermionic operators from Eq. (15) to spin op-
2
erators, again using the Jordan-Wigner transformation.
The two-qubit gate in Eq. (21) above can be easily ex- The unitary operators V on the right-hand side can be
pressed by single-qubit Pauli rotation gates, RP (θ) = implemented as quantum circuit with a combination of
exp(−iP θ/2), P ∈ {σ x , σ y , σ z }, and CNOT gates as Givens rotations [27–29], as outlined above. Note that
shown in Fig. 2. Analogously, we can obtain an expres- the Pauli raising operator σ0+ and its Hermitian conju-

gate are non-unitary and therefore cannot be directly im-
plemented on a quantum device. Nevertheless, the form
of the operators C † (ϕc ) and D† (ϕd ) we derived here is
advantageous to obtain the time-dependent expectation
values observables on a quantum device, as discussed in
Sec. III D.
C. State initialization and simulation of dynamics
In order to simulate the dynamics of scattering pro-
cesses, the initial state we want to generate is given by
|ψ(0)⟩ = D† (ϕdn )C † (ϕcn ) |Ω⟩. For the free fermionic case
discussed in Sec. III A, which corresponds to the Thirring
model with coupling g = 0, this state exactly represents
the ground state with two Gaussian wave packets – one
corresponding to an antifermion and another correspond-
ing to a fermion – superimposed on top. For the case of
non-vanishing coupling, applying the operators D† (ϕdn )
and C † (ϕcn ) to the ground state will no longer produce ex-
actly a state with a particle-antiparticle wave packet, but
should provide a good approximation. This will be veri-
fied a posteriori in our numerical simulations in Sec. IV.
Here we focus on the description of the dynamics of
such an initial state, which is given by
−iHt −iHt † ⟨O⟩ =
|ψ(t)⟩ = e |ψ(0)⟩ = e D (ϕdn )C † (ϕcn ) |Ω⟩ .
As mentioned before, the dynamics can be implemented
via standard algorithms, such as Trotter decomposition
or variational time evolution. We will not discuss these
approaches in detail, and estimating the resources re-
quired for these methods as well as assessing their per-
formance for the general case is left for future work.
For Hamiltonians that are at most quadratic in the
the fermionic operators, the time evolution can be im-
plemented more efficiently. On the one hand, the con-
sidered Hamiltonian is diagonal in momentum space.
Hence, if the evolution is computed in momentum space,
exp(−iHt) simply corresponds to a phase factor. On the
other hand, in position space, exp(−iHt) has the form of
Eq. (16). Thus, it can be decomposed using Givens rota-
tions as demonstrated for the operators creating wave
packets in the previous section. The resulting circuit
implements the time evolution operator for arbitrary t
without any approximation at a constant circuit depth
O(4N ) using O(N 2 ) CNOT gates. Thus, for the non-
interacting case this approach presents a more promis-
ing avenue towards simulating the dynamics on quantum
hardware than using methods based on Trotter decompo-
sition or variational time evolution. The technical details
for implementing the time evolution operator in the non-
interacting case using Givens rotation are presented in
Appendix C.
In general, we find the time-evolved state by combining
6
Eqs. (22) and (23),
|ψ(t)⟩ = U3 σ0+ U2 σ0− U1 |0⟩
1 (24)
= U3 (σ0x + iσ0y )U2 (σ0x − iσ0y )U1 |0⟩ ,
4
where we have defined the unitaries
U3 = e−iHt V (ϕd∗
n ), (25)
†
U2 = V (ϕd∗ c
n )V (ϕn ), (26)
† c
U1 = V (ϕn )U0 , (27)
and used the fact that the ground state can be prepared
via some unitary U0 from the state |0⟩. Note that the
state |ψ(t)⟩ in Eq. (24) is not a normalized state that can
be prepared on a quantum device, as the operators σ0± =
(σ0x ± iσ0y )/2 are not unitary. Nevertheless, it is possible
to obtain expected values of observables efficiently from
a quantum device, as we discuss in the following section.
D. Evaluation of time-dependent observables
In general, we want to calculate the expectation value
of some observable O in the state |ψ(t)⟩. Using Eq. (24),
the expectation value of O can be expressed as
1 1 1 X
⟨ψ(t)| O |ψ(t)⟩ = × cµ̄ ⟨O⟩µ̄ , (28)
(23) N N 16 µ̄
where we have explicitly taken into account the normal-
ization factor N = ⟨ψ(t)|ψ(t)⟩ since |ψ(t)⟩ is not nor-
malized. The symbol µ̄ corresponds to a multi-index
µ̄ = (µ1 , µ2 , µ3 , µ4 ) with µi ∈ {x, y}, and ⟨O⟩µ̄ is a short-
hand notation for
⟨O⟩µ̄ = ⟨0| (U1† σ0µ1 U2† σ0µ2 U3† ) O (U3 σ0µ3 U2 σ0µ4 U1 ) |0⟩ .
(29)
The coefficients cµ̄ in Eq. (28) are given by {±1, ±i}, de-
pending on the combination of Pauli matrices involved.
Note that in Eq. (29) all operators acting on the state
|0⟩ are unitary and can be implemented a quantum com-
puter.
For the case µ1 = µ4 and µ2 = µ3 , Eq. (28) repre-
sents nothing but the expectation value of observable O
in the state |χ⟩ = U3 σ0µ2 U2 σ0µ1 U1 |0⟩, which can be di-
rectly measured on a quantum device.
In all other cases, we can find the expected value of the
non-Hermitian operator with the following observation.
Since we sum over all possible combinations in Eq. (29)
and the Pauli matrices are self-adjoint, the sum is going
to contain the Hermitian conjugate of each summand.
Hence, we do not need to determine the individual sum-
mands; it is sufficient to obtain (cµ̄ ⟨O⟩µ̄ + h.c.) from the
quantum device. This can be done with a circuit sim-
ilar to that used for the Hadamard test [47, 48]. The
corresponding quantum circuit requires the addition of

|0⟩a G H
L obtained with analytical techniques. Lastly, we demon-
|0⟩q U1 σ0µ4 σ0µ1 U2 σ0µ3 σ0µ2 U3 O strate the feasibility of our approach on current quantum
FIG. 3. Circuit for measuring the terms in Eq. (28) utilizing
an ancilla qubit a. The expected value of (cµ̄ ⟨O⟩µ̄ + h.c.) can
be obtained by measuring the expected value of σ z on the
ancilla qubit. The gate G corresponds to the Hadamard gate
H if cµ̄ ∈ {±1}, and to G ≡ Rx (π/2) if cµ̄ ∈ {±i}.
an ancilla qubit, which is entangled with the qubits en-
coding the state wave function, as shown in Fig. 3. A
subsequent measurement of the expectation value of the
Pauli operator σ z yields the desired quantity. The nor-
malization factor N = ⟨ψ(t)|ψ(t)⟩ can be computed in a
similar manner by simply setting observable O = 1.
We now specialize our investigation on the case of free
staggered fermions, corresponding to g = 0 in Eq. (2).
The resulting ground state is trivial in momentum space
and is simply given by the state with no (anti)fermionic
excitations; see Eq. (B2) in Appendix B for details.
Hence, annihilating a (anti)fermion in this state is not
possible, and acting with the operators C, D on the vac-
uum state will result in zero. This allows us to rewrite
the initial state as,
|ψ(0)⟩ = D† (ϕdn )C † (ϕcn ) |Ω⟩
= D† (ϕdn ) + D(ϕdn ) × C † (ϕcn ) + C(ϕcn ) |Ω⟩



x † d∗ x † c
= V (ϕd∗ c



n )σ0 V (ϕn ) × V (ϕn )σ0 V (ϕn ) |Ω⟩ ,
(30)
where in the third line we have substituted in Eq. (22)
with σ0+ + σ0− = σ0x . Notice that in the last line of
Eq. (30) all operators acting on the ground state are uni-
tary. Since the time evolution operator is unitary as well,
expectation values of observables O in the time evolved
state |ψ(t)⟩ = e−iHt |ψ(0)⟩ can simply be measured on a
quantum device in a standard manner.
The simplification of the circuit discussed above ap-
plies only to the case of the free theory in case the initial
state corresponds to a wave packet of one fermion and
one antifermion. For more general settings considering
wave packets for two or more fermions and antifermions,
or when dealing with the interacting theory with a non-
trivial ground state, the Hadamard test remains the only
viable alternative for determining expectation values.
IV. RESULTS
In the following, we demonstrate the methods dis-
cussed above for the lattice Thirring model discussed in
Sec. II and whose Hamiltonian is given in Eq. (5). We will
examine two regimes: first we focus on the case of g = 0,
for which the Hamiltonian corresponds to a staggered dis-
cretization of free Dirac fermions and is exactly solvable.
7
Second, we investigate the interacting theory for g ̸= 0, a
regime where the solution of the model can no longer be
hardware by simulating the evolution of the noninteract-
ing case on IBM’s quantum devices. In both cases, we
will consider initial states corresponding to the ground
state with one fermion and one antifermion wave packet
with opposite momenta imposed on top. Subsequently,
we evolve those in time to observe the scattering of the
two wave packets.
For the continuum Thirring model, the spectrum and
the s-matrix can be computed analytically [49–51]; see
Refs. [52, 53] for slightly different interpretation.
The continuum Thirring model is equivalent to the
quantum sine-Gordon model in the sector of zero topo-
logical charge [54, 55]. Due to the infinite number of
conservation laws in the sine-Gordon model, there can
be no particle production during the scattering process.
In combination with momentum conservation, this im-
plies that the particles can thus only exchange momen-
tum during the scattering process [56, 57]. As such, we
will restrict our P discussion to the sector with constant
particle number n ξn† ξn = N/2 which, after
P the Jordan-
Wigner transformation, corresponds to n σnz = 0.
To characterize the scattering process, we calculate
several observables at each time step of the evolution.
First, we will measure the site-resolved particle den-
sity ⟨ξn† ξn ⟩t , which in spin language is simply given by
⟨(1 − σnz )/2⟩t . In order to highlight the effect of wave
packets compared to the ground state of the theory it-
self, we subtract the particle density of the ground state
and consider the quantity
∆⟨ξn† ξn ⟩t = ⟨ψ(t)| ξn† ξn |ψ(t)⟩ − ⟨Ω| ξn† ξn |Ω⟩ . (31)
Second, we calculate at each step of the evolution the
von Neumann entropy S(n, t) = − tr [ρn (t) log2 ρn (t)] ob-
tained for the reduced density operator ρn describing
the subsystem of the first n qubits. This quantity pro-
vides a measure for entanglement between two subsystem
L = {l < n} and R = {l ≥ n}. To again highlight the
effect caused by the addition of the wave packets, we sub-
tract the entropy of the ground state SΩ (n) and consider,
∆S1 (n, t) = S(n, t) − SΩ (n). (32)
In addition, to quantify the effect of the interaction
of the wave packets, we consider the difference in von
Neumann entropy obtained for a system with two wave
packets compared to the sum of the entropy from two
separate systems, each having either particle or an an-
tiparticle but not both. The latter can be obtained by
considering the initial states |ψC (0)⟩ = C † (ϕc ) |Ω⟩ and
|ψD (0)⟩ = D† (ϕc ) |Ω⟩ with the same momenta and width
of the wave packet as for the combined case and evolving
those in time. The difference in entropy is then given by


∆S2 (n, t) = ∆S1 (n, t) − ∆S1,C (n, t) + ∆S1,D (n, t) ,
(33)

where S1,(C,D) (n, t) is the entropy for the time evolved
state ψ(C,D) (0) , according to Eq. (32).
A. Vanishing coupling: the free fermionic case
Let us first consider the case of free staggered Dirac
fermions. While the dynamics of the system in this
regime can be simulated efficiently in momentum space
using free fermionic techniques (see Appendix B), we
choose to work in position space to benchmark the tech-
niques developed earlier.
In order to demonstrate that the operators in Eq. (22)
successfully create a wave packet, we first simulate the
evolution in time exactly. To this end, we obtain the
ground state |Ω⟩ of the Hamiltonian using exact diago-
nalization and subsequently compute the system’s evo-
lution via Eq. (23) by approximating the time evolu-
tion operator via a Taylor expansion up to second order,
exp(−iH∆t) ≈ 1 − i∆tH − H 2 (∆t)2 /2. Here we use a
time step of ∆t = 2 × 10−3 which is determined to be
small enough to avoid noticeable numerical errors for the
time scales we simulate. This allows us to easily reach
a system size of 20 qubits, the results for which for the
site resolved particle density throughout the evolution for
various masses are shown in Fig. 4. The particle density
(a) (b) (c)
m: 0.5, g: 0.0 m: 0.8, g: 0.0 m: 1.0, g: 0.0
80 80 80
60 60 60
time t
40 40 40
20 20 20
0 0 0 Our approach can also be applied to the interacting
0 5 10 15 0 5 10 15 0 5 10 15
n n n Thirring model with nonvanishing coupling, g ̸= 0. To
FIG. 4. Site-resolved particle density as a function of time
for the noninteracting case g = 0 and number of lattice sites
N = 20. The different panels correspond to different masses
m = 0.5 (a), 0.8 (b), and 1.0 (c). For all simulations, the ini-
tial Gaussian fermion wave packet is located around µcn = 4
with mean momentum µck = 2 × 2π/N , and the initial Gaus-
sian antifermion wave packet is located around µdn = 15 with
mean momentum µdk = −2 × 2π/N . Both the fermion and
antifermion wave packets have a width of σk = 2π/N in mo-
mentum space.
clearly shows the presence of the two wave packets where
the fermion (antifermion) manifests itself in an excess
(lack) of particle density compared to the ground state.
Moreover, we see the desired effect that the wave pack-
ets are moving towards each other, where the dynamics
8
progress faster for smaller values of the mass, as expected.
Since the fermions are noninteracting, the wave packets
simply pass through each other before approaching one
boundary and returning on the opposite due to periodic
boundary conditions.
In order to gain more insight into the scattering pro-
cess, we also consider the von Neumann entropy. Since
computing the entropy in our direct approach requires
constructing the reduced density operator, which in gen-
eral is a dense matrix, we use a slightly smaller system
size N = 14 for computational convenience. Moreover,
we do not perform a direct simulation of the state vector
as in the previously, but we simulate the the circuit al-
lowing us to compute the evolution exactly as discussed
in Sec. III C and outlined in detail in Appendix C. For
these simulations, we use Qiskit [58] assuming an ideal
quantum computer without shot noise. The results for
the subtracted particle density and the von Neumann
entropy are shown in Fig. 5. Despite the reduced sys-
tem size, the particle density reveals that we initially still
have two clearly separated wave packets which propagate
towards each other during the evolution and eventually
pass through one other. Inspection of the site-resolved
entropy, ∆S1 (n, t), in Fig. 5(b), there is no entanglement
between the wave packets at the beginning of the evo-
lution but as they approach one another, they become
also become entangled. However, looking at the sub-
tracted von Neumann entropy, ∆S2 (n, t), in Fig. 5(b)
which corresponds to subtracting the sum of the entropies
obtained from evolving the fermion and the antifermion
0.4
wave packet individually, we see that this quantity is close
to zero throughout the entire evolution. This demon-
0.2 strates that there is essentially no excess entropy pro-
duced compared to evolving each wave packet individu-
∆hξn† ξnit
0.0 ally, as expected for two noninteracting the wave packets.
−0.2
B. Nonvanishing coupling: the interacting case
−0.4
case, and here we study the dynamics of the lattice
show that the operators in Eq. (22) indeed create a wave
packet corresponding to a particle-antiparticle pair to
a good approximation, we first perform a direct evolu-
tion using a Taylor expansion up to second order as for
the noninteracting case. The results for a system with
N = 20 sites and time step ∆t = 1 × 10−3 for various
values of the coupling are shown in Fig. 6. Again, we
have again checked that the step size is small enough to
prevent any significant numerical errors.
For t = 0 we clearly see two wave packets correspond-
ing to a particle and an antiparticle, again appearing
respectively as an excess and a deficiency in particle den-
sity compared to the ground state; c.f. Fig. 6(a). More-
over, as time progresses, we observe the wave packets
are moving towards each other before eventually collid-
ing and interacting. For small absolute values of the cou-
 9

(a) (b) (c)

30 30 2.5 30
0.6
0.8
0.4 2.0

20 20 20 0.6
0.2 1.5

∆S1(n, t)

∆S2(n, t)
∆hξn† ξnit
time t

0.0 0.4
1.0
10 −0.2 10 10
0.2
0.5
−0.4

−0.6 0.0 0.0

0 0 0
0 5 10 0 5 10 0 5 10
n

FIG. 5. Particle density (a), entropy ∆S1 (n, t) (b) and subtracted entropy ∆S2 (n, t) (c) for the non-interacting system with
14 sites and m = 0.8. The initial Gaussian fermion (antifermion) wave packet is located around the site n = 2 (n = 11) with
the mean momentum µck = 2π/N (µdk = −2π/N ). Both wave packets have the same width in momentum space σk = 2π/N .

(a) (b) (c) (d)

m: 1.0, g: -0.8 m: 1.0, g: -0.2 m: 1.0, g: 0.2 m: 1.0, g: 0.8
40 40 40 40
0.4

0.2

∆hξn† ξnit
time t

20 20 20 20 0.0

−0.2

−0.4
0 0 0 0
0 5 10 15 0 5 10 15 0 5 10 15 0 5 10 15
n n n n

FIG. 6. Site resolved particle density as a function of time for m = 1.0 and N = 20. The different panels correspond to different
couplings g = −0.8 (a), −0.2 (b), 0.2 (c), and 0.8 (d). For all simulations, the initial Gaussian fermion wave packet is located
around µcn = 4 with mean momentum µck = 2 × 2π/N , and the initial Gaussian antifermion wave packet is located around
µdn = 15 with mean momentum µdk = −2 × 2π/N . Both the fermion and antifermion wave packets have a width of σk = 2π/N
in momentum space.

pling g, we observe a similar behavior as in the free case:
the wave packets essentially pass through each other, as
shown in Figs. 6(b) and 6(c). Comparing this to the
noninteracting case (shown in Fig. 4(c)), the wave pack-
ets disperse slightly stronger for a nonvanishing coupling
of |g| = 0.2, and the particle density spreading at t ≈ 30
is more pronounced. At larger absolute values of the
coupling, |g| = 0.8, we observe a noticeable change in be-
havior. The wave packets are no longer passing though
each other, but instead repel each other, as can be seen
in Figs. 6(a) and 6(d).
Our observations from the direct simulation are in
agreement with the theoretical prediction for the contin-
uum model, with no observed particle production during
the scattering process. Due to momentum conservation,
the wave packets representing the (anti)particles either

pass through each other or repel each other, depending
on the coupling, g. While the former behavior is ob-
served for couplings close to zero, the latter happens if
the absolute value of g is close to 1.
Again, we also examine the von Neumann entropy a
slightly smaller system size N = 14, where we use state
vector simulation in Qiskit [58] to get the vectors corre-
sponding to the four unitary summands of Eq. (24) and
get the quantum state |ψ(t)⟩ through their combination,
and we normalize the state |ψ(t)⟩ before calculating the
von Neumann entropy. For the time evolution operator,
we use the matrix representation of e−iHt in our simu-
lation and the resource estimation of Trotter decompo-
sition is left for further work. The results for various
values of the coupling are depicted in Fig. 7. Despite the
reduced system size, the particle density in panels (a) -
(d) clearly shows the same effect as for N = 20: for val-
ues of the coupling close to zero the wave packets simply
pass through each other, whereas for |g| = 0.8 they re-
pel each other. Focusing on the entropy in Fig. 7(e) -
7(h), we see that there is a noticeable amount of excess
entropy compared to the ground state. In particular,
then entropy is growing with |g|, where for positive val-
ues of the coupling, we generally observe larger values
of ∆S1 (n, t) than for the corresponding negative value
as a comparison between Figs. 7(e) and 7(h) as well as
7(f) and 7(g) reveals. While the values for the excess
entropy compared to the noninteracting case are larger,
the evolution of ∆S1 (n, t) looks qualitatively similar to
the noninteracting case, as a comparison with Fig. 5(h)
shows.
Turning towards ∆S2 (n, t) in Figs. 7(i) - 7(l), we now
observe a clear difference between the non-interacting
case and g ̸= 0. While the non-interacting case essen-
tially shows a homogeneous value of ∆S2 (n, t) through-
out the entire evolution, for g ̸= 0 we see a noticeable
increase of ∆S2 (n, t) at the point where the two wave
packets collide with each other. Considering the same
absolute value for the coupling, we generally observe that
∆S2 (n, t) grows faster for the positive choice of g than
for the negative value. This is in agreement with obser-
vation in the particle density, that for a fixed value of |g|,
the collision happens at earlier times for a positive value
than for the corresponding negative value (compare, e.g.,
Figs. 7(a) and 7(d)). Interestingly, for the time scales we
study, the data for ∆S2 (n, t) for g = 0.8 shows a qualita-
tively different behavior than for g = −0.8. For the posi-
tive value, we see a peak in ∆S2 (n, t) in the center of the
system around t = 8 when the wave packets first start to
collide. This peak subsequently decays before two peaks
at close to the boundary of the system emerge around
t = 20, at which time the wave packets start to interact
again due to the periodic boundary conditions. In con-
trast, for g = −0.8 we observe a considerable increase in
∆S2 (n, t) between the wave packets after colliding, and
there is no substantial decay during the entire time we
simulate.
In summary, our numerical results demonstrate that
10
the operators we derived allow for creating wave pack-
ets corresponding to a fermion and an antifermion with
opposite momenta even in the interacting regime. The
(anti)particle wave packets move towards each other and
start interacting, which is reflected in ∆S2 (n, t).
C. The free fermionic case on quantum hardware
Finally, we demonstrate that our approach is feasible
on current quantum hardware, and implement the nonin-
teracting case on IBM’s quantum devices. To this end, we
use a simple parametric circuit for preparing the ground
state of the model with high fidelity, where the param-
eters have been optimized using a classical simulation2 .
Subsequently, we evolve the initial state with two wave
packets using the techniques for the free fermionic case,
g = 0, discussed in Sec. III C. This allows us to simulate
the evolution for arbitrary times t at a constant circuit
depth. In order to mitigate the effects of hardware noise,
we employed probabilistic error amplification (PEA) [59]
with zero-noise extrapolation limit [45, 60]. For PEA, we
applied Pauli twirling to each unique layer in our nominal
circuit. We then generated 300 circuit instances at gain
factors G = {1, 2, 3} and sampled each of the resulting
900 circuits 1024 times to determine the average value of
each observable of interest. Finally, we used an exponen-
tial fit of the averages of the measured values at different
G to obtain an estimate of their zero-noise value.
Figure 8 shows results for the particle density obtained
on ibm peekskill for 12 qubits in comparison with the
exact results for several time steps. Comparing panels
8(a) and 8(b), we observe good agreement between the
data from the quantum hardware and the exact solution.
In particular, focusing on the time slices obtained from
the quantum device in Fig. 8(b), we clearly see the two
wave packets moving towards each other (t = 0, 6), before
they eventually passing through (t = 12) and start to
move away from each other again (t = 18, 24).
To get a more detailed picture of the hardware results,
we show the site-resolved data for individual time slices
in Fig. 9. As the figure reveals, there is generally good
agreement between the exact result and the experimental
data from the quantum device, in most cases both results
agree within error bar. In particular, the time-slices for
the particle density illustrate once more the presence of
two separated wave packets, showing up as a peak in the
particle density around site 2 and a dip at site 9 for t = 0
(c.f. Fig. 9(a)). These are moving towards the center as
time progresses resulting in a particle density noticeably
different from zero in the center of the system, as shown
in Fig. 9(b). Eventually, after the two wave packets pass
2 Note that finding the optimal parameters could be done with a
standard VQE approach. Since our primary focus in this work
lies on the time evolution, we use a classical simulation to save
time on the hardware.
 11

m: 0.8, g: -0.8 m: 0.8, g: -0.2 m: 0.8, g: 0.2 m: 0.8, g: 0.8

(a) (b) (c) (d)
30 30 30 30
0.6

0.4
20 20 20 20 0.2

∆hξn† ξnit
time t

0.0

10 10 10 10 −0.2

−0.4

−0.6
0 0 0 0
0 5 10 0 5 10 0 5 10 0 5 10
(e) (f) (g) (h)
30 30 30 30 2.5

2.0

20 20 20 20 1.5

∆S1(n, t)
time t

1.0
10 10 10 10
0.5

0.0
0 0 0 0
0 5 10 0 5 10 0 5 10 0 5 10
(i) (j) (k) (l)
30 30 30 30
0.8

20 20 20 20 0.6

∆S2(n, t)
time t

0.4

10 10 10 10
0.2

0.0
0 0 0 0
0 5 10 0 5 10 0 5 10 0 5 10
n n n n

FIG. 7. Particle density (first row), entropy ∆S1 (n, t) (second row) and subtracted entropy ∆S2 (n, t) (third column) for
an interacting system with 14 sites and m = 0.8. The different columns correspond to different values of the coupling
g = ±0.8, ±0.2. The initial Gaussian fermion (antifermion) wave packet is located around the site n = 2 (n = 11) with
the mean momentum µck = 2π/N (µdk = −2π/N ). Both wave packets have the same width in momentum space σk = 2π/N .

through each other, we observe again a well separated V. CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK
peak and a dip in the particle density around t = 18 in
Fig. 9(c).
In this work, we proposed a framework for studying
fermion scattering on digital quantum computing. Using
the lattice Thirring model as an example, we demon-
 12

(a) (b) 0.6

30 30 0.4 (a) t=0

0.2 0.3
20 20

∆hξn† ξnit

∆hξn† ξnit
time t

0.0
0.0
10 10 −0.2

−0.4 -0.3
ideal simulation
0 0 hardware run
0 5 10 0 5 10
position n position n
-0.6
0 2 4 6 8 10
FIG. 8. (a) particle density for N = 12 and m = 1.0 as a 0.6
function of time obtained from an ideal simulation. (b) Same (b) t = 12
as panel (a), but with the time steps at t = 0, 6, 12, 18, 24
replaced by the ones obtained from the quantum hardware 0.3
(indicated by the gray dashed boxes).

∆hξn† ξnit
0.0

strated our framework by simulating the elastic collision

-0.3
for fermion-antifermion wave packets both classically and
on quantum hardware.
Guided by the free theory, corresponding to the -0.6
0 2 4 6 8 10
Thirring model at vanishing coupling, we derived a set
of operators that allow us to create approximate fermion 0.6
and antifermion wave packets for the interacting theory (c) t = 18
on top of the ground state. Starting from such an initial 0.3
state, we showed how to efficiently obtain the expected
∆hξn† ξnit

value of observables from a quantum device throughout

the evolution and provided the necessary quantum cir-
cuits to measure them.
To demonstrate our approach, we first simulated the
dynamics of the a fermion-antifermion wave packet in
the free theory exactly before proceeding to the inter-
acting case. Observing the particle density and the von
Neumann entropy produced throughout the elastic scat-
tering, we characterized the process and showed that our
framework provides an avenue towards simulating these
dynamics on quantum devices. While the entropy can
in general not be obtained efficiently on a quantum de-
vice, the particle density can be readily measured on a
digital quantum computer. Moreover, we carried out a
proof-of-principle demonstration simulating the scatter-
ing a fermion and an antifermion wave packet for the
free theory on IBM’s quantum devices. Using state-of-
the-art error mitigation methods, the data obtained from
the quantum device is in good agreement with the the-
oretical prediction, thus showing that our approach is
suitable for near-term quantum hardware.
Our work can be generalized to arbitrary fermionic
models, and provides a first step towards simulating
fermionic scattering processes on quantum computers.
While we provided a demonstration on quantum hard-
ware, a systematic study of the effects of the quantum
noise is left for future work. Furthermore, our data for
the particle density can serve as a benchmark for future
experiments studying scattering processes in the Thirring
model on a quantum device.
0.0
-0.3
-0.6
0 2 4 6 8 10
position n
FIG. 9. Time slices showing the site-resolved particle density
for N = 12 and m = 1.0, the different panels correspond to
t = 0 (a), 12 (b), and 18 (c). The blue diamonds correspond
to the ideal result on a noise-free quantum computer taking
an infinite number of measurements. The yellow dots repre-
sent the data from the quantum hardware, where error bars
represent uncertainties due to a finite number of measure-
ments. As a guide for the eye, the data points are connected
with lines. The horizontal dashed grey line indicates the zero
value of ∆⟨ξn† ξn ⟩t .
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
IBM, the IBM logo, and ibm.com are trademarks
of International Business Machines Corp., registered in
many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service
names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies.
The current list of IBM trademarks is available at https:
//www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade. S.K. acknowledges
financial support from the Cyprus Research and Inno-

vation Foundation under the project “Quantum Com-
puting for Lattice Gauge Theories (QC4LGT)”, contract
no. EXCELLENCE/0421/0019. A. C. is supported in
part by the Helmholtz Association —“Innopool Project
Variational Quantum Computer Simulations (VQCS).”
This work is funded by the European Union’s Horizon
Europe Framework Programme (HORIZON) under the
ERA Chair scheme with grant agreement no. 101087126.
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Appendix A: Details of Givens rotation
In this section, we explain how to decompose a complex unitary matrix u based on Givens rotation. We then
demonstrate how to decompose the operation V (u) into local operations based on this decomposition of u.
Given a complex unitary matrix u with dimensions N × N , we can find a series unitary matrices rnl (θnl ) and pl (β⃗l )
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 15

that diagonalize the matrix u as follows

sN −1 · · · s0 u = I, (A1)
(A2)

where

l ⃗
sl = rl+1
l l
(θl+1 l
) · · · rN l
−1 (θN −1 )p (βl ), l = 0, · · · N − 1, (A3)
sN −1 = pN −1 (β⃗N −1 ). (A4)

The matrix sl is serves to diagonalize the l-th column of matrix u. In this process, the diagonal matrix pl (β) ⃗
eliminates the phase of elements in column l and then Givens rotation matrix rnl (θ) eliminates the element unl . The
formula of matrix pl (⃗(β)) and rnl (θ) are as following:
 iβ 
e 0 0 ··· 0
 0 eiβ2 · · · 0 
⃗ =
pl (β)  .. . ..

(A5)
 . .. .
0 · · · · · · eiβN −1 N ×N

 
1 ··· 0 0 ··· 0
 . . . .. .. 
 .. . . .. . .
 
l
 0 · · · cos(θ) − sin(θ) · · · 0
rn (θ) = 
  , (A6)
 0 · · · sin(θ) cos(θ) · · · 0
 .. .. .. . . .. 

 . . . . .
0 ··· 0 0 · · · 1 N ×N

where the matrix rnl is diagonal except for (n − 1)-th, n-th row and columns.
Below, we illustrate the procedure for the diagonalization of the first column of u. Considering a general complex
unitary matrix u:

a0,0 e−ib0,0 a0,1 e−ib0,1 a0,N −1 e−ib0,N −1

 
···
 .. .. .. 
u=
 . . ··· . 
 , (A7)
aN −2,0 e−ibN −2,0 aN −2,1 e−ibN −2,1 · · · aN −2,N −1 e−ibN −2,N −1 
aN −1,0 e−ibN −1,0 aN −1,1 e−ibN −1,1 · · · aN −1,N −1 e−ibN −1,N −1 N ×N

where anl , bnl are the absolute value and phase of matrix element unl . In order to diagonalize the first column of u.
We will multiply the phase matrix p0 (β) ⃗ to u such that the elements in first column of u become real. The parameters
0 ⃗ ⃗ ⃗ · u is as follows:
in p (β) are denoted as β = (b0,0 , · · · , bN −1,0 ), and the matrix p0 (β)
 
a0,0 a0,1 e−ib0,1 ··· a0,N −1 e−ib0,N −1
e e
 . .. ..
 .

⃗ ·u= .
p0 (β) . ··· . 
 . (A8)
aN −2,0 aN −2,1 e−ibN −2,1 · · · aN −2,N −1 e−ibN −2,N −1 
 e e 

aN −1,0 aN −1,1 e−ibN −1,1 · · · aN −1,N −1 e−ibN −1,N −1 N ×N

e e

⃗ and the phase of elements in other columns

In the above, the phase of the first column in u is eliminated by p0 (β),
0 0
are changed to ebnl = bnl − bn0 . Subsequently, we can utilize the matrix rN −1 (θN −1 ) to induce a rotation between the

0 N −1,0 a
(N − 1)-th row and (N − 2)-th row. With a rotation angle θN −1 = arctan − aN −2,0 , the rotation is able to zero the
element aN −1,0 :
 16

0 0 0 ⃗
rN −1 (θN −1 ) · p (β) · u
 
a0,0 a0,1 e−ib0,1 ··· a0,N −1 e−ib0,N −1
e e
 .. .. .. .. 
=

 . . . . 

0 0 −ibN −2,1 −ibN −2,N −1 



cos θN −1
aN −2,0 − sin θN −1
aN −1,0 e aN −2,1 e ··· e aN −2,N −1 e
e e

0 0 −iebN −1,1 −ie
bN −1,N −1
cos θN −1 aN −1,0 + sin θN −1 aN −2,0 e aN −1,1 e ··· e aN −1,N −1 e N ×N (A9)
 
−ie
b0,1 −ie
b0,N −1
a0,0 a0,1 e ··· a0,N −1 e
 ... .. ..
 a
..

0 N −1,0
θN −1 =arctan − aN −2,0

−→  . . . 

aN −2,1 e−ibN −2,1 · · · e
aN −2,0 e aN −2,N −1 e−ibN −2,N −1 
 e e 
e
0 aN −1,1 e−ibN −1,1 · · · e aN −1,N −1 e−ibN −1,N −1 N ×N
e e
e

In the resulting matrix above, all the matrix elements in (N − 1)-th row and (N − 2)-th row are changed due to the
Givens rotation. To simplify, we use e anl and ebnl to represent the absolute value and phase of matrix elements after
the rotation. To diagonalize the first column of the matrix u, we need to multiply more Givens rotation matrix to u
to zero the matrix elements on the row N − 2, N − 3, · · · , 1 in first column:
0 ⃗
s0 · u = r10 (θ10 ) · · · rN
0 0
−1 (θN −1 ) · p (β) · u
 
1 0 ··· 0
0 a1,1 e−ib1,1 ··· a1,N −1 e−ib1,N −1 
e e
 a
 e e
0
θn =arctan − a n,0 (A10)

n−1,0
. .. . ..
. .

−→ .
 . . . 
 ,
0 e aN −2,1 e−ibN −2,1 · · · e aN −2,N −1 e−ibN −2,N −1 
 e e 

0 eaN −1,1 e−ibN −1,1 · · · e aN −1,N −1 e−ibN −1,N −1 N ×N

e e

 
an,0
where θn0 = arctan − an−1,0 for n = N − 1, N − 2, · · · , 1. Furthermore, the first elements of other columns are also
zeros after diagonalizing the first column. This occurs due to the orthogonality between different columns in a unitary
matrix. The procedure is similar if we want to diagonal the second column of u, and so on... In the wave packet
c(d)
preparation, we specifically focus on the first column of u, denoted by un0 = ϕn . Therefore, assuming s0 · u = I,
the decomposition of u will be:
†
† 0 0 †

u = (s0 )† = p0 (β) ⃗ 0 0


· rN −1 (θN −1 ) · · · r1 (θ1 ) . (A11)

Regarding the unitary operator V (u) defined in Eq. (16), one can get a decomposition of it based on the property
V (u · u′ ) = V (u) · V (u′ ) and the decomposition of matrix u:

V (u) = V † (p0 ) · V † (rN

0 † 0
−1 ) · · · V (r1 ), (A12)

with,
! !
X X
V † (p0 ) = exp − [log p0 ]nl ξn† ξl = exp −i βn ξn† ξn ,
nl n
! (A13)
 
[log rn0 ]ij ξi† ξj †
X
†
V (rn0 ) = exp − = exp θn0 [ξn−1 ξn − ξn† ξn−1 ] .
nl

The final equation above employs the following result, which is non-zero only for the elements with indices (i, j) =
(n − 1, n) and (n, n − 1):
 
0 ··· 0 0 ··· 0
. .
 .. . . ... ... .. 
.
 
l
0 · · · 0 −θ · · · 0
log [rn (θ)] = 
0 · · · θ 0
 (A14)
· · · 0
 .. .. .. . . .. 
 
. . . . .
0 · · · 0 0 · · · 0 N ×N
 17

Appendix B: Momentum space and Fock space

In this appendix, we analytically determine the particle density noninteracting case during the scattering process
via calculations in momentum and Fock space. Since we are dealing with a free fermionic system, these computations
involve a matrices whose dimensions N × N , enabling us to numerically simulate the phenomenon for large system
and to cross-check the results in position space.
In momentum space, the free fermion Hamiltonian is diagonal in terms of the fermionic and antifermionic creation
(annihilation) operators c†k , d†k (ck , dk [15]:
 
  2π N N
wk c†k ck − dk d†k ,
X
H= k ∈ Λk = − ,··· −1 , (B1)
L 4 4
k

and the vacuum |Ω⟩ in this theory is the state with no excitations of fermions and antifermions:

ck |Ω⟩ = dk |Ω⟩ = 0. (B2)

As there is no interaction between fermions and antifermions in momentum space, the wave function of the system is
as the tensor product of the wave function for fermion and antifermion subsystems:

|ψ⟩ = |ψc ⟩ ⊗ |ψd ⟩ . (B3)

When considering the Fock basis for the momentum state, the Gaussian wave packets for the fermion and antifermion
can be represented as the vectors
 T
|ψc (t = 0)⟩ → ϕck1 , . . . , ϕckN/2 , (B4)
 T
|ψd (t = 0)⟩ → ϕdk1 , . . . , ϕdkN/2 , (B5)

with ki = 2π/N ×(i − N/4 − 1). In this basis, the fermion and antifermion part of Hamiltonian correspond to diagonal
matrices with dimension N/2 and the full Hamiltonian will be a direct sum of the matrix for the fermions and the
antifermions. The fermionic part will be given by
 
w0 0 · · · 0
 0 w2 · · · 0 
wk c†k ck →  .. .. . .
X
Hc = ..  (B6)
 
k
 . . . . 
0 0 · · · wN/2−1

and analogously the antifermionic part. As a result, the time evolution of the initial fermionic Gaussian wave packet
can be expressed as follows (up to a global phase)

|ψ(t)⟩ = e−iHt |ψ(0)⟩ = e−iHc t |ψc (0)⟩ ⊗ e−iHd t |ψd (0)⟩

(B7)
 T  T
−iw t −iw t
→ e−iwk1 t ϕck1 , . . . , e kN/2 ϕckN/2 ⊗ e−iwk1 t ϕdk1 , . . . , e kN/2 ϕdkN/2 , (B8)

To obtain the particle density, ⟨ξn† ξn ⟩t at each spatial site, we need to transform the operator ξn† ξn into momentum
space. For even n we find
s s s s
1 X m + wp m + wq −i(p−q)n 1 X m + wp m + wq −i(p−q)n
ξn† ξn = e × c†p cq − e × d†p dq × vp vq
N wp wq N wp wq
pq∈Λk pq∈Λk
1 X m + wp
+ × vp2 , (B9)
N p wp
X
c†p × Cpq
n0
× cq + d†p × Dpq
n0


→ × dq + Ceven ,
pq∈Λk
 18

For odd n, we obtain

s s s s
† 1 X m + wp m + wq −i(p−q)n † 1 X m + wp m + wq −i(p−q)n
ξn ξn = e × cp cq × vp vq − e × d†p dq
N wp wq N wp wq
pq∈Λk pq∈Λk
1 X m + wp
+ , (B10)
N p wp
X
c†p × Cpq
n1
× cq + d†p × Dpq
n1


→ × dq + Codd ,
pq∈Λk

where the constant Ceven and Codd are the particle density of the vacuum for even and odd sites. The definition of
wk and vk can be found in Eq. (10). Using the matrix representation in one-particle Fock space C nr , Dnr , r ∈ {0, 1},
T T
we can evaluate the particle density quickly by calculating ϕ⃗ck × C nr × ϕ⃗ck + ϕ⃗dk × Dnr × ϕ⃗dk . We show the result
with 200 sites in Fig. 10.

0.04
700

600
0.02

500

∆hξn† ξnit
time t

400 0.00

300

−0.02
200

100
−0.04
0
0 50 100 150
position n

FIG. 10. The particle density for free staggered fermion with N = 200. The initial fermionic Gaussian wave packet is located
at µcn = 30 with mean momentum µck = 20 × 2π/N ; the initial antifermion wave packet is located at N − 1 − µcn with the same
absoulte value for the momentum as the fermion but in the opposite direction. For both the fermion and antifermion wave
packet we choose a width of σk = 2π/N in momentum space.

Appendix C: Decomposition of the time evolution operator in noninteracting case

In the noninteracting case, corresponding to g = 0 in Eq. (2), the Hamiltonian is quadratic in the fermionic operators
and thus corresponds to a free staggered Dirac fermions. The time evolution operator operator for this case reads as

U (t) = exp (−iHt)

N −1
!
X i † 
= exp −it ξn+1 ξn − ξn† ξn+1 + (−1)n m ξn† ξn
n=0
2 (C1)
!
X
= exp ξn† Mnl ξl ,
nl
 19

where M is an antihermitian matrix in Fock space depending only on the mass and evolution time

−im −1/2 0 0 · · · 0 1/2

 
 1/2 im −1/2 0 · · · 0 0 
 0
M =t×
 1/2 −im −1/2 · · · 0 0  . (C2)
 ... ..
.
..
.
..
.
..
.
..
.
.. 
. 
−1/2 0 0 0 · · · 1/2 im N ×N

As Eq. (C1) reveals, the operator U (t) has the same form as Eq. (16) with u = eM . Thus, we can use Givens
rotation to decompose the time evolution operator in the same way as V (u). Appendix A provides a comprehensive
explanation of how to use Givens rotation to diagonalize the first column of the unitary matrix u. The remaining
columns can then successively brought to diagonal form by repeating the procedure and eventually resulting in the
decomposition of U (t). Parallelizing the Givens rotations on distinct qubit-pairs, the time evolution operator in the
noninteracting case can be decomposed into a quantum circuit of constant depth O(4N ), using O(N 2 ) CNOT gates.